Poor Tax Governance Invites Audits, Australian Tax Office Warns

Australia’s top 500 corporate taxpayers mostly lacked documented tax governance processes, raising the risk of audits, a report by the Australian Taxation Office said.

Tax agents signed off on A$1.646 billion ($1.28 billion) on income tax paid by the country’s top 500 privately owned and wealthy companies during the 2023–24 fiscal year, the ATO said Dec. 3.

Its audits of the company’s accounts raised an additional A$552.5 million in income tax liabilities, which were the result of basic errors and companies having little or no documented tax governance framework, the report said.cq

The ATO examined complex tax arrangements ...